A soft candy is a candy product prepared by using sucrose and thick malt syrup as the main component, adding fat and an emulsifier optionally together with dairy products, if required, thereto, concentrating the resulting mixture by heating under atmospheric or reduced pressure, molding the candy dough thus obtained and then solidifying the same by cooling. There are various soft candies and the consumption of these products amounts to a high level. However it has been recently pointed out that the excessive intake of sugar, in particular, sucrose causes an increase in the morbidity of decayed teeth and accelerates obesity and diabetes.
Under these circumstances, confectioners have developed a number of sugar-free sweet foods which are low in calories and less corrosive. Some of these products have already been put on the market. Recently, there has been developed a method for producing erythritol, which is a sugar alcohol of a tetrose, and erythritol has been marketed as a low-caloric, non-corrosive sweetener. Thus attempts have been made to apply erythritol to various sweet foods.
Regarding the application of erythritol to hard candies, for example, JP-B-56-18180 (corresponding to EP-A-9325; the term "JP-B" as used herein means an "examined Japanese Patent Publication") has disclosed a process for producing a sugar-free candy by using erythritol. Also JP-A-64-47348 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 4,883,685; the term "JP-A" as used herein means an "unexamined published Japanese Patent Application") has disclosed a process for producing a hard candy which contains from 30 to 80% by weight of erythritol.
Further, JP-A-4-320647 has disclosed a process for producing a hard candy which contains at least 80% by weight of erythritol.
However hard candies comprising erythritol as a starting material are disadvantageous in that when erythritol is contained in a large amount, the candies are highly brittle and liable to be broken during the production, distribution or selling process. The above-mentioned patents aim at solving these problems.
In addition, these products are all hard candies and thus it has been required to develop a low-caloric and less corrosive soft candy having a smooth texture.
Compared with other sugars such as sucrose, erythritol crystallizes at an extremely high rate. Thus no soft candy of excellent qualities can be obtained simply by substituting erythritol for sucrose in a conventional method for producing a soft candy. That is to say, when erythritol is mixed with fat and an emulsifier, concentrated by heating and then cooled, the obtained candy is neither soft or smooth but coarse in texture due to the large crystals of erythritol thus formed.